U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got it badly wrong: Israel isn't Iran, and comparing it to Iran - as she did during her remarks at a closed session of the Saban Forum where she expressed shock over the treatment of women in Israel - demonstrates either ignorance or malice.

First, Iran isn't considered a democracy: It openly and proudly adopted a system of government in which a religious scholar is the supreme leader. Israel, in contrast, wears a facade of democracy even as a select group of religious scholars who are only ostensibly committed to the law dictate the state's way of life.

Israel isn't Iran. Iran officially and openly separates unmarried men and women in public venues. In Israel, such segregation is against the law, but in practice, it is alive and well and sneering at the law. In the army, on buses that serve the ultra-Orthodox community and in state religious schools financed by the government, segregation flourishes.

Israel isn't Iran. In Iran, human rights organizations can receive assistance from a defined list of international organizations and institutions, "with the approval of the relevant government ministers," as Iranian law puts it. In Israel, proposed legislation would bar some organizations from receiving any money at all from foreign governments, while others would have to run the gauntlet of a Knesset hearing to get an exemption from, or at least a reduction on, the 45 percent tax.

1. OUCH....that writer winds up and hits it out of the park at the end!

... Israel has succeeded in forging a special status for itself as a kind of Amish community in whose moral behavior one doesn't intervene. It is the West's version of the extremist ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta sect, which resembles a democracy only if one looks at it from a great distance and compares it to Iran or Sudan.

"If you want to understand the pressure that Obama is under from the Israel lobby, consider this greasy story: Last week three high Obama officials urged Senators not to pass an amendment to the huge Defense Authorization Bill that would apply far stiffer sanctions to Iran's central bank than the Obama administration wanted. Two of the officials went to the Hill, and said the amendment would send oil prices higher, among other damaging effects.

But the Senate rebuffed the administration and voted unanimously, 100-0, for the sanctions.

Why did the Senate put aside appeals from Treasury secretary Tim Geithner, under secretary of the Treasury David Cohen, and Wendy Sherman, #3 at the State Department, all saying that the bill would be bad for business and bad for the U.S.'s efforts to build a coalition on Iran? Why did John Kerry, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations, acknowledge Tim Geithner's letter against the legislation, and then vote against his president?

The clear evidence is, Because the lobby wanted this amendment and these guys feared for their political lives. AIPAC led the charge. AIPAC rolled the amendment out 3 weeks ago, and then led a letter-writing campaign to US Senators on the amendment, known as Kirk-Menendez (in part for the Senator from AIPAC, Mark Kirk of Illinois). Here's the AIPAC memo from last month:

Time is running out to prevent Iran from obtaining sufficient quantities of higher enriched uranium to facilitate a quick breakout to produce a nuclear weapon. Together with like-minded nations, the United States must act quickly and with the full force of our remaining economic tools to prevent such a nightmare scenario.

The president should immediately designate the CBI as a weapons proliferator or terror supporter under Executive Order 13224 or 13338. This designation would prohibit foreign banks with operations in the United States from conducting business with the CBI.

5. Unlike Iran, Israel has not threatened its neighbor with annihilation

Is it hypocritical of me to not allow my young children to own a gun if I own a gun? No, it is being responsible and recognizes the inherent folly of giving someone a dangerous weapon when they are not prepared for the consequences of said ownership.

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